Chennai: Tamil Nadu Chief Minister Edappadi K. Palaniswami has made it clear to the BJP national leadership that the AIADMK will not have any alliance with V.K. Sasikala, her nephew TTV Dhinakaran and their party.
Highly placed sources in the AIADMK revealed that this stand was made clear to the BJP national general secretary in-charge of Tamil Nadu electioneering, C.T. Ravi - by Palaniswami with the support of Deputy Chief Minister O. Panneerselvam.
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Sources told news agency IANS that any support from Sasikala would be counterproductive for the AIADMK, BJP alliance with all the negative aspects associated with the "Mannargudi Family".
For the uninitiated, after the death of CM J Jayalalitha, her close-aid Sasikala had tried to consolidate power within AIADMK to rise to the top post herself but her attempt was foiled by the Supreme court verdict in the disproportionate assets case leading to a faceoff between Palaniswami and Pannerselvam which then resulted into a mutual understanding of who gets to be the CM.
The Chief Minister is reported to have communicated the decision to the top BJP leadership, including party national president J.P. Nadda and the Union Home minister Amit Shah.
Meanwhile, the Chief Minister and his team are said to be very confident that the party will come back to power resulting in the tough stand against Sasikala while TTV Dhinakaran still talks about merging with AIADMK.